HostGator.com, L.L.C.

Review: On [redacted]2014 I renewed [redacted] through my [redacted] on hostgators website. I noticed I kept getting renew notices, contacted hostgator over the phone, they cancelled 6 websites including the one I renewed on [redacted], 2014. I called 2 days later when I noticed it and got yelled at from 2 employees that they will not fix the error and they dont care about the issue at all. The one employee stated he was a [redacted] for hostgator. I contacted hostgator through the chat online and they fixed the issue. Today I went back into my account and noticed the issue was undone. At this point I have no idea what to do, its obvious the employees think they can take money and give nothing back, and if you have an issue they will play games and delete my account for no reason other then they just didnt like the way I asked.Desired Settlement: I want them to apply the money I paiid on [redacted]2014 to [redacted] so my website will restore to what it was. I should have to deal with this at all

Business

Response:

Good Afternoon,Thank you for bringing this situation to our attention. I'd like to first and foremost offer our sincerest apologies for any frustration or inconvenience this situation has caused you. We’re happy to look into the matter and ensure this gets addressed appropriately. Reviewing the last several phone calls you’ve had to support however I’d like to also point out a few concerns I have with the situation just to hopefully avoid such frustration in the future.What I found most concerning with this situation is that you state our staff told you that you were out of luck, which isn’t the case, however you simply would not allow them to work through this with you prior to losing your cool and hanging up on our [redacted] I sympathize with the frustration when you thought it was addressed initially, however if you won’t cooperate with our staff it’s difficult to assist you. To then see you state here that they refused to assist you is unfortunate as that’s not the case which our call logs support.I also noticed that when the request was opened in [redacted] you were provided a list of domain names that were to be cancelled. Even though I realize the agent mistakenly included the domain he’d assisted you with renewing, you as a point of fact requesting that he cancel all domains that included the word “landscaping” which is exactly what was done for you. The billing admin unfortunately would not have been aware of the mistake with the one domain of concern, but to that end you were provided in writing the list of domains at which time this could have been corrected. To be clear as well, I’m not pointing blame at you for this and will absolutely credit the domain cost as you’ve requested, but I point this out to hopefully help you avoid a repeat in the future. He provided the list of domains for you to double check and that clearly didn’t happen, but all the same please just double check in the future and we’ll be happy to correct any mistakes on the spot. I realize you assumed it was good to go, but it’s always important to double-check changes with domains, as our domain agreement does outline registrations are non-refundable, which is the root of the problem here regrettably.At any rate, with that all clarified though it’s unfortunate that you’ve presented the situation here as you have leaving out much of what took place, I did credit the account for you as requested. We do appreciate your business and hope the credit shows this. If you have any further questions or concerns for me, please feel free to respond to [redacted] and I’ll address those personally.Best Regards,[redacted] Hostgator.com

Business

Response:

Hello Again,My apologies that the renewal in fact had not processed, however I was working off a note in the ticket history stating it was paid and renewed which having reviewed your first call appeared was the case. The renewal has been processed manually and taken care of at this time, which I've verified personally though [redacted] may still take a few hours so please realize it may not initially load from your location till those updated [redacted] records propagate. It has certainly been taken care of though as shown in the whois below:Domain Name: [redacted]Registry Domain ID:Registrar WHOIS Server: [redacted]Registrar URL: [redacted]Updated Date: 2014-[redacted]Creation Date: 2013[redacted]Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2015[redacted]Registrar: [redacted]HostGator)Registrar IANA ID: [redacted]Registrar Abuse Contact Email: [redacted]Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: ###-###-####Name Server: [redacted]Name Server: [redacted]My apologies again for my own confusion as I worked to resolve this mess, though I can assure you I do in fact want to make sure this gets resolved contrary to your continued false accusations about your interactions with our support. It's unfortunate to see that given I have the calls recorded and reviewed those fully, though all the same we stand behind our products and services are simply happy to get this resolved and put an end to the matter. If you feel taking your business elsewhere is in your best interest even in light of your own lack of cooperation when our [redacted] tried to explain and resolve this with you the first time, after reviewing the calls and understanding what was said, perhaps that's best. Please let me know if we can be of any further assistance while you prepare to make that transition or if I can do anything further to assist here directly with the service should you stay please don't hesitate to ask! We'd hate to see you leave over what was a simple mistake, but I can be reached directly at [redacted] should you need anything at all.Best Regards,[redacted]Hostgator.com

Consumer

Response:

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response. If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted] and find that this resolution would be sort of satisfactory to me.

If you listen to the recordings, you would understand why I hung up on your [redacted] the way I did. Its obvious that hostgator teaches its employees that hostgator can never be wrong. Just reading the thousands of complaints online, the language you continue to use in youre responses to my Revdex.com complaint, and in the Revdex.com online complaints, I cannot stay with a company like hostgator, if ever this issue happens again, I wouldnt want to call you guys at all. Its scary, but thank you for finally handling the actual issue. Take care

Review: I paid for a webhosting plan on [redacted]. On [redacted], I received an email asking to send a copy of a government issued ID and a scanned copy of my debit card showing the last 4 digits only in which I promptly submitted. I waited for 1 day until I got a reply that I need to send the debit card copy again showing the expiration date. I promptly submitted. I waited for another 1 day but I did not receive any reply. I contacted their chat support online and I waited for more than 30 minutes. I was told that I need to submit a screenshot of my online statement to prove that I own the debit card. I promptly submitted again.

I waited for another 1 day but no reply again. I contacted chat support again and waited in queue for more than 30 mins. I was advised that I need to send again another screenshot of my statement, this time showing my name. I promptly submitted again.

I was finally advised that my account is already activated but when I tried to access it now, it is still not active.Desired Settlement: I want what I paid for and compensation for the delayed delivery of the service that I availed.

Business

Response:

Greetings,

Thank you for reaching out to us regarding the trouble getting your account activated. Though we apologize for the measures and steps we required you to go through, please understand that we do verify some accounts to this extent based simply on the signup information. This is done to put a stop to online fraud through our signup process, which is unfortunately rampant on the internet these days. The good news however though is that our pending process does do a pretty good job of protecting the company and keeping our costs down ultimately for our customers.

I do see that our staff after requesting some additional information, did get your account activated. I understand you're having troubles accessing the account and setting up Wordpress reviewing your ticket history, but it appears your domain name still needs it's DNS nameservers updated to match those in the Welcome Email we sent you, otherwise it's not pointing to our server and service.

I've also gone ahead and credited your account for next month's service given the initial delay and trouble getting started, though I will also follow up with you directly in the ticket you have open to ensure you're able to get the DNS and Wordpress working properly.

Best Regards,

Director of Customer Service

Consumer

Response:

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response. If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.

Review: On the 18th of February 2015, I went online to pay my domain renewal for the year. I had found out my credit card and paypal payment option had been removed. As someone who works several 24 hours shifts a week and sleeps on her days off, I find it hard to make time to go out and get a money order to mail in a payment (which is what they were requesting). Not to mention by the time I had a day off, if I had mailed my payment, it would not have made it in time, and the domain would have expired, so credit card or paypal would be the fast simple solution to ensure my payment went through in time and my domain would not be discontinued.

I talked to customer service who told me they would look into the issue and get back to me. A few days later I get a ticket resolved email stating to send a money order to said address, which as you can see did not solve my issue or even explain why the credit card option was removed after I've been using it for years. At this point, sending a money order would definitely not make it in time for the expiry. My website is a business, I can't afford to have it down even for a day. So, on the 23rd, the date of expiry, I still have not gotten a response, either explaining how or why my credit card payment option was removed, nor have I gotten any explanation as to why no one on their offices can figure out how to simply add it back on or take a payment over the phone. My domain expired. I make a phone call to Host Gator and to my surprise, I'm now told they won't accept ANY forms of payment towards the account. Check, money order or otherwise. Which is contradictory to the email I got previously. No answer were given other than "the fraud department won't allow it." Now, to clarify, our account WAS compromised 6 months ago, but has since then been sorted out.

So when the lady on the phone could not help me nor give me any answers as to what I can do or what is happening, I decided to try yet again on live chat on their website. I spoke to a man named Zafeer for about an hour who would just constantly tell me to "Please bear with me as I'm looking into the issue" only to end the conversation with (and this is a direct copy and paste):

(7:21:38pm)[redacted].:We will look further into this and will reply back to that ticket once we have reviewed it. You will will hear back from us - we just dont know when?

Now, for such a time sensitive issue, for them to tell me you will hear back from us "we just don't know when" just adds to the level of unprofessionalism I've had to deal with. I then decided to call yet again, and was put on hold repeatedly for near an hour, only to be told the young man spoke to his supervisor and billing and they don't have an answer for me, and to wait for a response.

Even though I was informed they would take no payment of any kind, I've sent in a money order anyways which will likely be rejected. But I'm losing my domain, no one can give me an answer as to why, and apparently their company has no idea how to take credit card payments or even add that as an option for their consumers. It's extremely frustrating having been a customer of theirs for years and to run into this problem with not a single person who can explain who/what/why it's happening, and no one willing to help. Every day my website is down, I'm losing money, and their company has done, so it seems, nothing to help. I've never seen a situation to where I'm attempting VERY hard to pay my bill and they won't accept it.

The most frustrating thing of all this? I can't even attempt to purchase the domain through another company because there is a hold on the domain. So I'm literally stuck, with no options, no answers, and no way to get my website back up. I've never filed a complaint with Revdex.com in my life, or anything else for that matter, I'm usually a passive, or lets say "understanding" person. But when a company literally gives you the run around and tells you "I don't know what's happening, we'll get back to you but I don't know when" knowing my business is on the line and my website may be lost, it gets a little ridiculous and I think more needs to be done about this matter than "Sorry, we can't help.".

I hope through the Revdex.com, that hostgator.com will take their customer service more seriously, and get the proper training to handle situations like this so others won't have to lose money/time and deal with the frivolous frustrations that I have. Especially on issues that are so time sensitive and 'should' be an easy fix. If this whole issue has anything to do with the "fraudulent activity" 6 months ago, a simple explanation saying so would be nice, or at least an understanding that I was the victim of fraud so why am I being punished for it? Something as simple as making a payment on my account should not be such an impossible issue.Desired Settlement: I do not want any credits, I don't want an apology, all I want is my issue fixed and for my domain to be restored and my credit card and paypal payment options to be restored on my account so that I can pay my bill in a timely manner and not have to lose business or my website.

Business

Response:

Good Afternoon,We're always sorry to hear about a domain expiring and would be glad to discuss these events further. To provide a brief summary, first and foremost our system automatically sends out an e-mail 30 days before the domain expires meaning there was ample time to address this situation but unfortunately after our response to the related ticket on the 21st, we did not hear back with any follow up questions for 2 days, till February 23rd, the domain's expiration date.In the complaint I see it was reported we would not accept payment of any type but this is of course inaccurate as it would be illogical to ask a customer to pay for a renewal then provide no option to submit payment. That said, it is accurate that we informed [redacted] that she would need to pay by check, money order or bank wire due to a previous fraudulent charge on the account. There was a report that [redacted] was not aware of why we put this requirement in place however I have found that on multiple occasions [redacted] referenced the fraudulent charge on her account using her credit card and also stated that our agent confirmed this. Also, there seems to be an impression that we do not accept credit cards for any of our customers, but [redacted] has also acknowledged she has been making payments with credit cards to us for years so we assume she is aware that this is not the case. We never like to make submitting payment more difficult, however in our experience we have found that fraudulent use of a credit card often happens more than once, so we put holds on the account to protect both the credit card holders as well as our company, considering fraud investigations take serious time and cost us funds to the credit card companies. Finally [redacted] also mentions that she had trouble receiving assistance over the phone as well as live chat on the 23rd but after review, found that the live chat and phone call occurred at the same time so it is not surprising they had the same result. The issue here is that our front line support does not have access to address fraud reports due to their serious and sensitive nature so these issues do get addressed via ticket/email by our specific fraud department. The domain in question has now been renewed and we've also received the necessary information from [redacted] in order to restore the option to also pay by credit card on future renewals. I hope this fully addresses all concerns but I've also taken over the related ticket to provide a direct line of communication in case further escalation is necessary.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.

They have finally resolved the issue after over a week of no answers, being given the "run around", and losing several days of business, however once they issue was resolved, they took it upon themselves to charge my card, after I had already agreed to send in a check, which required yet another call for me sort out. My main complaint, besides the obvious issue of not being able to sort out my payment issue, was the [redacted]customer service[redacted]. Which still to this day, in their passive aggressive Revdex.com response proves to be less than satisfactory. Yes, my account was compromised, yes I acknowledged that, but at no point was I told nor did I agree or make any statement saying I wanted my credit card removed, or have it be denied any future payments, and if that is an automatic thing they do on their end, I was not notified of this. Yes, I was given 30 days notice, but that, once again, means nothing as I clearly attempted to make a payment ahead of the payment due date. I was a victim of identity theft in 2009 and do not like to have to randomly throw my personal information, especially pictures of my ID through email on the internet, so I was less than happy to do so in order to "fix" this issue of their's which one again they never even described to me until they felt the need to "defend" themselves through the Revdex.com. They twisted my words around in my complaint and made accusations that are not true, attempting to make me look like an it, just to not own up to their mistakes and terrible customer service. Honestly, if there wasn't a ~30 day hold on domains, I would definitely have switched to a different company and I'm still looking into doing so. So once again, despite their fluff that no doubt some legal representative of the company threw together to make themselves look better, the bottom line is the entire situation was handled very, very poorly and the company refuses to take responsibility and admit their faults. So at the end of the day, I expect HostGator to send yet another fluffed up, vague response that makes them look perfectly innocent, but I feel others need to know of this situation and possibly avoid business with them in the future. I've already share this information with the several tens of thousands of our "followers/fans" and will continue to spread the message not to do business with HostGator. I will not be reading their response at this point, because the only thing at the end of the day I request that they do, is not treat other clients as they treated me, and stop making excuses for their poor customer service, and instead do something to fix it.

Regards,

Review: On November 17th, 2014 I made a payment in the amount of $481.15 to pay for 3 years of shared hosting. At the end of January 2015, I received an email that my jscooperauthor.com website domain needed to be renewed. I contacted hostgator via online chat because I didn't see a invoice when I logged in. I asked the lady to bill me for the 10 years, $150 cost so that I didn't have to worry about paying the invoice every month. She said she was unable to bill me for it because I had a credit balance of over $400 on the account and that the invoice was automatically deducted from the credit balance. I said that balance was for my hosting plan and shouldn't be used to pay the domain name. She said it will be used to pay whatever comes up. I said I want to pay the domain name off separately for my own billing purposes. She said I can just pay when my credit balance runs out. I said that is not what I want as I have records to keep. I was then rude and said "are you dumb? you aren't even listening to me and what I want. Awful customer service." And then I disconnected from the chat and rated the chat.

Two days later, I wake up and see that I have been charged for some new private servers and website domains. I try to log into my account and the password no longer works. I then call the hostgator number and have been told that my email address has been changed and two VPS accounts have been set up under my name: [redacted] - [redacted]

VPS [redacted] - [redacted] and a website dizipub.co and I have been charged [redacted] Multiple Domain Registration (1 Domains) 2015-01-25 2015-01-25 $39.90

38198361 VPS-[redacted] 2015-01-25 2015-01-25 $95.96

38198396 VPS-123789 [redacted] 2015-01-25 2015-01-25 $503.52

And now my payment of $481.15 has disappeared and so has the credit balance from my account.

I am extremely displeased, worried about hacking, my security and my personal information and no longer trust Hostgator with any of my information.

I DID NOT CREATE THESE NEW DOMAINS OR VPS. AND NO ONE ELSE HAS ACCESS TO MY ACCOUNT. PLEASE TAKE CARE OF THIS SITUATION ASAP.

I also want to make a formal complaint about the lady I spoke to the other evening via website chat. [redacted]Desired Settlement: I would like an apology, billing adjustment and a promise that this will never happen again. I want my account monitored and if I see any further fraudulent charges on my account I will take further action and go to the news and newspapers.

Business

Response:

Good Afternoon,Thank you for bringing this unfortunate situation to our attention. I apologize for any frustration and inconvenience you may have experienced recently, however after an initial review of your support and ticket history I see from our ticket notes that some of the details you’ve presented here don’t seem entirely accurate.Though there are discrepancies in what you’ve stated and what we’ve accounted for, as well as a lot of unnecessary finger pointing at our staff for issues they didn’t cause, I do see that one of my customer service managers has since been involved and is working to assist you with your cancellations and the appropriate refunds. While it’s unfortunate that you didn’t simply contact us in the first place via [email protected] when this started, it’s good to see your support ticket escalated to my team where it will be in good hands, but also addressed as promptly as possible.Going through the open ticket HAS-[redacted] I see that [redacted] did assist with getting your packages cancelled and appears to be waiting for a response and confirmation of which domains you wished to retain active and those which need cancelled. Once that’s all squared away, we’ll ensure you are refunded fairly should a refund be appropriate at that time. Should you have any further questions or concerns though with the situation, beyond [redacted]’s attention to the matter please feel free to contact me directly [redacted]@hostgator.com.Best Regards,[redacted]Director of Customer Service Hostgator.com

Review: 2 days host gator is messing around with my ecommerce website and the website of my clients

We can not make any sales because our website is down and on the top of all the website came up and all our database was messed upDesired Settlement: for the whole year

Business

Response:

Greetings,

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. I'd like to first and foremost offer our sincerest apologies for any frustration or inconvenience this situation has caused you, however we are certainly honoring our 99.9% uptime agreement, which was obviously not met this past week during the outage affecting many reseller servers. Looking over your billing account I see that we did already apply a credit towards the guarantee, and though I realize we may not be able to compensate you to the degree you're hoping given you may have in fact incurred losses through ecommerce sites, I'd like to go one further then just the month credit the guarantee offers.

Keeping compensation totals in mind as we are a business too, while I can't directly compensate towards the losses you have communicated were experienced, I have applied an additional two month credit to your billing account. This brings the total credit to 3 months, and I hope gestures our interest in moving the situation forward. If you have any concerns or questions regarding the outage itself, please feel free to follow up with us directly in your previously opened Customer Service ticket [redacted] We’ll look forward to moving beyond this and hopefully regaining your trust!

Best Regards,

Director of Customer Service

Hostgator.com

Consumer

Response:

THis does still not resolving the money loss we had for not making sales for the 2 day downtime

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.

Review: I signed up for hosting services with Hostgator and instantly was faced with a problem - my payment went to a old balance created when I didn't deactivate an account I had started many years prior. A few weeks after initially registering, I called in to speak with a customer service agent who was able to resolve the billing issue completely. He also informed me about the free migration service (moving data/accounts from one [redacted] to their [redacted]), and even stayed on the phone with me while I filled out the form to have my [redacted] account, files for the primary domain, and subsequently the domain names attached to the primary domain transferred over to Hostgator. I was quite impressed that the service was offered, but even more impressed that the agent insisted on staying on the phone with me to make sure I got it filled out correctly. Thank God he did because there were a few hiccups that I was able to resolve regarding logging in and the server ip address. A few days later, an email response back from Hostgator got lost in my madness of emails... it was asking about whether I wanted the entire [redacted] account transferred or only the data for the primary domain - what kind of question is that when I just filled out the transfer form for the entire [redacted] account to be transferred. All the domains are doing are pointing to specific folder paths within my one hosting account. It's one single [redacted] account - I was clear when I got off the phone with the Customer Service agent what would be done for me. After a few more weeks I went searching to see what was the latest with my Hostgator account, and I found the email. I called into customer service, and after multiple phone calls, being put on hold, having to read an email response from a supervisor and then not being able to speak to one when I called in, Hostgator is telling me that I have to pay to do this service now because it's only offered the first 30 days. It's absurd. I didn't even ask for the service, it was offered to me (after 30 day of being a customer too), and after all of this leg work, they now want me to pay for it. So now I have a hosting account with Hostgator with none of my data on it, and it's been taking away months of service while I fight to get them to honor their original commitment. I requested to just be refunded for the three years of service I prepaid, but of course they wouldn't honor that either.Desired Settlement: I would like for them to complete the migration of my [redacted] from [redacted]t to Hostgator as I was originally promised and excited for. In addition, I would like three months of service credited back to my account. I prepaid for 3 years of service; it is obviously my intention to remain a loyal customer with them, so it would be appreciated if some attempt to make this right is shown. Thank you.

Business

Response:

Good Morning,

Thank you for reaching out to us regarding the troubles you’ve experienced getting started with your hosting account. I’m sorry to see this happen and will definitely do everything I can to make right on the situation, however I do have some concerns I’d like to address directly given they were overlooked in your account of the situation that was provided to the Revdex.com.

The first concern is that you neglected to cancel your previous hosting account when you stopped using it, then in May used a coupon to receive 50% off on a new package with the same domain name, at which time you cancelled the account stating you no longer needed it. Given you had just opened a new account, that’s simply dishonest and lamentably considered coupon abuse which we’re able to close the account for per our Terms of Service. I don’t have any interest in closing the account in an effort to be fair with you and to e clear I realize that this was hopefully just an honest oversight on your part, but we unfortunately cannot provide you the credit you’ve requested in light of our findings. I’d like to also encourage you to review Terms of Service agreements in full prior to agreeing to them as well in the future. This could have been easily avoided had that occurred.

Which brings me to the second concern in that you requested the migration on May 28th, and then didn’t respond to the ticket for 2 months after we requested clarification from you. I’m not sure if there was confusion on your part regarding this, or what happened, but ultimately the delay wasn’t something that occurred through our staff’s negligence. We need your cooperation to ensure such requests are handled in a timely manner, which just didn’t happen here. Additionally, you were told when you signed up for the account in May that a free migration would be offered during the first thirty days(by June 30th in this case). With that clarified, hopefully we can move forward in an amicable fashion though if you have additional questions regarding these two concerns please let me know.

Bringing me finally to the migration which I’d be happy to take care of for you. I understand that the $75 migration fee likely leaves you with a sour taste having just signed up in May, and while this wouldn’t have resulted had adherence to the thirty day window been respected, it’s definitely not a problem to transfer the content. In the interest of being as fair as possible I’ll also bump the renewal date back on this to 8/2017 if that’s agreeable since that looks to be when you bumped the ticket and request again. I’ll have the migration ticket escalated for you immediately, but if you do have any questions please feel free to reach out to me directly via [email protected] subject: Attn: [redacted]. I’m happy to discuss anything further and again do want to ensure you’re satisfied with your decision to host with us.

Best Regards,

Director of Customer Service

Hostgator.com

Consumer

Response:

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response. If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.

Just a quick review of some points you made:

Review: I have been with Hostgator for about 5 years. The first 4 years were excellent, and I never had a problem they couldn't handle. The hosting and customer service were second to none, quick and reliable.

Recently, I have had EXACTLY the opposite experience. Initially, I gave them a break. All businesses have their bad days. Well, I've given them a year, and they haven't changed a thing. I'm guessing they were acquired by another company (the only thing that would explain such a rapid change in performance and customer service standards.

Primary Complaints:

24/7 support advertised but not provided.

Not answering their phones

Not answering their Live Chat modules

Not answering their tickets

Seriously, take some ownership of your company. All I want is an [redacted] to get away from Hostgator, or at the very least, [redacted] your system so that it provides [redacted] numbers so I don't have to keep contacting you guys for the most basic of services.Desired Settlement: All I want is some kind of response to this SIMPLE request. Phone call, ticket answered, live chat answered, SOMETHING. Get it done!

Business

Response:

Good Morning,Thank you for bringing the delay with your domain [redacted] keys to our attention. Though I understand and apologize for the frustration you’ve experienced I’d like to point out that the request for the [redacted] keys was made the day prior to you submitting a complaint. While we understand this turn around isn’t exactly speedy, at the same point we have been experiencing higher then usual volumes resulting in the delay. Instead of reaching out to us via [redacted] however for assistance as requested here via the Revdex.com, you simply filed a complaint, in our mind perhaps prematurely.I apologize too for the current service level and staffing, though we are working to address this and are seeing positive changes slowly over time the past few months. We unfortunately can’t just throw untrained staff into our support structure, so please understand we are making improvement and look forward to returning our service to the level you previously came to expect.As my email last week noted, though I was unable to locate your account with any of the information provided here initial in the complaint I did eventually track down the billing account and your open ticket, escalating the request for your EPP keys. That was processed shortly there after, and since unlocking the domain and providing those keys we’ve heard nothing back from you confirming success on your end. I did see you rated the ticket response a 0, which is fine as we appreciate any ratings we receive, though ultimately I’d like to ensure you did get the domains unlocked and the keys working to transfer those domains. As you have my personal email address please feel free to reach out to me directly as opposed to using support given your dissatisfaction and I’ll be happy to address your concerns personally.Best Regards,[redacted]Director of Customer Service[redacted]

Review: Hostgator's service and support has degraded tremendously within the past few years. My server has went down due to their incompetencies as a web host provider. Their support has degraded to the point of where a minimum of 30 minutes wait time. I submitted a ticket Nov 1 and 4 days later still no one has responded to it. I am currently unable to manage my website which is still in a Halloween theme which makes my company look as if we don't have our processes together to switch it off as well as end the Halloween sale. So now my customers are still seeing a halloween theme and still buying my products at 50% off.

Business

Response:

Good Morning,Thank you for reaching out to us regarding the recent support delays. I'd like to first and foremost offer our sincerest apologies for any frustration or inconvenience this situation has caused you, though we do appreciate you reaching out and letting us know so we can hopefully address the matter with you as promptly. In regards to our delays, we do acknowledge staffing has been an issue this year, which we’re working as quickly as we can to address. We’ve been quite excited for our tremendous growth these past several years, but the reality on the flip side is that we’ve honestly had difficulties keeping staffing inline with support demands.While our service level from a quality stand point hasn’t diminished as we continue training and adding new staff to our support team, we do ultimately recognize that the speed by which that we’re able to get through queues has dropped as you noted, simply due to volumes. We have ramped up recruiting and training efforts however this year in an effort to get ahead of the issue once and for all, and though progress is steady, it’s unfortunately quite slow as we continue to combat our growth.Moving to your downtime concerns, I’d like to point out after reviewing your ticket history that it appears you’re simply not reporting issues to us when they occur, as it’s been several months since a ticket regarding downtime was opened. You mention in the complaint itself that your server has been down recently, though the ticket you mentioned as delayed is regarding adding SSH to a domain which you would have had access to perform yourself through WHM. Though the delay is obviously unfortunate, at the same time you did have appropriate access to perform this quickly through WHM, and as such I cannot reason providing the requested credit. As was explained in a prior Revdex.com complaint requesting credit per our 99.9% uptime guarantee, that’s offered specifically towards shared and reseller platforms, not towards your dedicated environment, which is covered by a network uptime guarantee. As I’m not aware of any network downtime to your server recently we’d be unable to provide credit as requested. We were also extremely fair to you earlier this year after you requested a downtime credit, having provided several times what our Terms of Service and the network guarantee promise, which I think requires some extra consideration given you’ve returned once more requesting compensation with little to no details regarding the problems.Finally, it’s also concerning that I previously had contact with you through the Revdex.com, providing you my own contact details if you needed them in the future which you neglected to make use of. Though I’m happy to address your issues personally, without contact as you’re experiencing issues it’s impossible to assist you otherwise. With these points made and my prior explanation regarding the network uptime guarantee on your server, it’s our decision that we’ll be unable to provide you the requested credit. If you have further concerns or would like to provide details on downtime, which I may in fact be able to consider towards a credit please feel free to reach out directly in [redacted] which I’ll keep assigned directly to myself for this purpose.Best Regards,[redacted]Director of Customer Service[redacted]

Review: I set up a web hosting account on HostGator on Oct 18, 2014. After spending a few hours attempting to set up my account, with no success, I decided it was too much trouble, and decided to cancel under the terms of the 45 day money back guarantee. I used the cancellation form linked from the terms of service. I completed the form, and received a confirmation of the cancellation in my email. I waited 72 hours, but charges were still on my credit card. I checked my account online, and then noticed that the cancellation date was processed as Oct 18, 2015! Not at all what I expected--the cancellation form did not give an opportunity to enter a cancellation date, and apparently defaults to the end date of your subscription, which is very misleading and a deceptive business practice. You are FORCED to use this online form for cancellations under the 45 day money back guarantee.

On October 22, 2014, I called the toll free number for HostGator several times, always put on hold. After several attempts and holding for over 30 minutes, I finally talked to a person by the name of [redacted]. I explained all of the above to [redacted], and he said he has now changed the end date on my cancellation ticket to Oct 18, 2014 -- the date of original purchase. He further acknowledged on the phone that it is a "common mistake" that people cancel as of the expiration date of the subscription, because that is the default setting on the cancellation form. However, he assured me that I would get a full refund, now that the cancellation date was changed by him. I asked for a confirmation number -- he said my ticket number is my confirmation number. I asked for email confirmation. He said I would get email confirmation of the correct cancellation date by email in 2-3 hours. I never received email confirmation.

On Oct 24, 2014, I went back to my login to check the status of my account. It was listed as Cancelled, but no further email confirmation. I sent two follow up emails through this feedback system, inquiring about my refund and the status of my account. I have received no response. I tried to call once again today, using extension number 1012. I got sent to voice mail. Obviously, this company is trying to avoid honoring their money back guarantee. Their practices can be considered unethical, if not fraudulent.

Today is October 27, 2014, and the charges are still on my credit card. I have received no further communication from HostGator. I am owed $125.93. I expect a full refund.Desired Settlement: I expect a full refund to my credit card, in the amount of $125.93.

Business

Response:

Good Morning,Thank you for alerting us to the troubles you've encountered with your cancellation and refund request. Though it's unfortunate that you didn't give us an opportunity to resolve this with you directly through [email protected] as directed on the Revdex.com site prior to sumbitting your complaint, I appreciate the opportunity to resolve this for you either way and will ensure your refund is processed promptly today. I'd like to also discuss why this occurred as well as they delay, just so you're aware and better able to protect yourself in the future as a consumer, as this frustration could have been avoided.As you're aware, this particular request has in fact taken longer then the 72 hours we note on the phone, however we've been somewhat short staffed this fall as our client base continues to grow day after day. Though we're having a hard time recruiting fast enough, we are certainly increasing staffing through additional recruiting and training efforts, involving contract workers even at this point to try and help bridge the gap in the meantime. We realize this can be frustrating as you simply await your refund, though I can assure you nothing fraudulent is taking place as you seem to believe.I'd like to also point out that while you did submit the cancellation form properly, our Terms of Service also outlines the fact that we require a request for the refund in writing once the cancellation ticket opens. This is due simply to the fact that our cancellations do typically end at the end of a renewal cycle, which ensures customers have access to their data through the end of the month typically. This is not done to slight customers or avoid providing refunds in relation to our 45 day guarantee, which we have and always will stand behind. I offer this information simply for your own awareness and not to further our dispute, but please realize that this was in fact all outlined in the TOS, had you reviewed that completely you likely would have been aware.With that clarified, I do see that your ticket was already noted for the requested refund given you did email us several times after the original request, but given it's taking some time to get through the refunds queue, I've just asked that a senior member of our retention/billing team process this for you promptly. Please also around one business week for the payment processor to actually process the funds back into your card's account, though if you have any further questions I can be reached at [email protected]. I'll look forward to ensuring you get receive your refund at the heart of this dispute, though please let me know if I can be of any further assistance at all. I understand the frustratoin you've experienced and do ultimately want to ensure this is taken care of in a satisfactory fashion.Best Regards,[redacted]Director of Customer ServiceHostgator.com

Consumer

Response:

This letter is to inform you that HostGator.com, L.L.C. has carried out to my satisfaction the resolution it proposed for my complaint, filed on 10/27/2014 1:33:11 PM and assigned ID [redacted]

Regards,

From: [redacted]]

Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 7:13 AM

To: drteam

Subject: Re: You have a New Message from Revdex.com Regarding Complaint #[redacted]

This is to inform you that, as of today, the full refund has been posted to my credit card account. Thank you for your assistance.

Review: Two issues: Cancellation Problem and Billing Issue

I'm having issues with being able to cancel my webhosting account with hostgator. I went to their site on sunday Oct 19th to find out how to cancel. I read that I was supposed to submit a request their cancellation form. I went to that page, logged in, filled out the form, hit submit and then was returned to the login page. I was a little concerned I didn't get a confirmation message but figured I would wait till next day for contact.

Having received no confirmation or anything from HG, I decided to go to the form again. This time I went through my desktop computer and different browser. Again logged in, filled form, submitted and was sent back to login page. No confirmation of form submission success, no error message, nothing. Again I waited and received no confirmation.

On Tues Oct 21st I submitted two support tickets - 1) to billing and 2) to support. (This was fairly early on Tues) At 7:30pm I received a note from support saying I had to go through the cancel form to submit cancellation. When I filled out support ticket I stated that I had already submitted the cancel 2x but they said they had no record.

So on Weds Oct 22 early morning, I went to the cancel form again (using the same computer and browser as I did on Mon) and this time recording my screen and taking screen shots. This time the form said it did submit and received a message saying that a ticket had been open and I received an email.

Now it is Fri Oct 24th and the ticket sits. No answer no movement, no action.

My hosting package is set to renewal for Oct 26th. The had changed their billing practice some months ago - without prior notice I may add - to billing 6 days before renewal date. Never did they once give prior notice for that. Now because of the problem with faulty forms, lousy customer service, inability to act in a timely manner, I am in danger of having my hosting renewed. They already tried to renew the hosting on the 20th but it failed because I didn't add money to that account.

They are a terribly company to do business with. For months, out of the blue I started getting spammed with marketing promos and along with many, many problems with tech support.Desired Settlement: I would like for them to cancel my hosting package and not attempt to charge my card, and clear any bill that I clearly do not owe. I have done more than enough to try to cancel this awful service and get away from this company. I think it is very unethical of a company that the only way you can cancel a service is through a form and not through regular support.

Business

Response:

Good Morning,Thank you for reaching out to us regarding your recent cancellation troubles. I'd like to first and foremost apologize for any trouble you experienced, however there are a few concerns I have with your complaint given the cancellation form specifically states cancellations will be processed within 72 hours, which it was in fact once you submitted a cancellation request. Though I can't say for certain why you experienced issues with the form, given it does in fact work properly and consistently whenever I test it, the form also specifically states not to assume the request is received and your account cancelled unless you receive a confirmation email from us, which it appears you did not. I'm sorry you assumed otherwise, neglecting the matter and thus resulting in a delay, but at the same point had you simply contacted us the first day you experienced a failure with the form, we could have helped you submit that and processed the account cancellation likely on the spot or within the hour at least. To be clear since it appears you believe otherwise, we definitely don't mean to keep accounts active beyond the time a customer wishes to cancel and would be happy to offer a refund to correct such a problem, but at the same point we do need communication with you if you're having troubles. With that said, though I think our form does a pretty clear job of outlining the process, I do see the account was cancelled within the 72 hour window.Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns. I'd be happy to address these with you personally, and will keep ticket [redacted]0 assigned to myself directly for that purpose should you need to contact us for anything further.Best Regards,[redacted]Director of Customer ServiceHostgator.com

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted]. The company finally cancelled the account after 6 days of trying to cancel. However I find it unacceptable that in HostGator's response of blaming me for not contacting them on the first day of form failure is not correct. I DID submit a ticket to BOTH BILLING AND SUPPORT after submitting the form two times. In those tickets I specifically mentioned I had submitted the form not once, but TWO TIMES. The response from billing was to move it to another department. The response from Support was to tell me to submit the form again. That is after I had already submitted the form TWICE. So if you have a form failure you are supposed to try to submit the form again because nobody in support will help. This company used to be a decent company to deal with and I personally recommended them hundreds of times over the years since 2002. However their poor support, lack of customer service, and constantly trying to market new products to customers in a very "spammy" way is unacceptable to me and apparently the many long time customers that are leaving.I'm glad to be free from this company and will be passing my experiences on to my clients, web design colleagues and others. Good Riddance!

Review: We have experienced like thousands of others an outage of services for close to 24 hours. In the business that HOSTGATOR is in, this is unacceptable. The Loss of business revenue far exceeds any kind of refund they might be able to provide. They SAY 99.9% of the time they will be up. In the past 6 months they have had 3 significant down times. 1. NO ANSWER ON ANY PHONE ALL DAY2. NO RESPONSE FOR ONLINE SUPPORT3. GENERIC ARTIFICIAL TWEET LIES4. NO REAL UPDATES EVERMy business partner and I spoke at length as to what to do regarding this situation. Litigation is a lengthy process and getting attorneys involved is not necessary. We will settle for $5K or small claims court it is.Desired Settlement: $5K

Business

Response:

Greetings,

Review: They migrated everyone's sites to new servers in early [redacted]. By mid [redacted], my stuff wasn't working. My emails went down. My forums were not working. Even now their own billing site doesn't properly integrate the CPanel necessary for me to manage my account, making for unfair business practices hat violate ICANN policy. On top of that, they are charging me for a domain name that they forgot themselves to automatically renew WITHOUT MY CONSENT. I have had no less than a dozen issues with them in the course of 2 years & this tops it all off. I haven't ever paid a bill late or done anything to compromise their business -- but they insist on doing the same to me. Next is filling a complaint with ICANN to get their business accredidation revoked so they can't sell domains anymore. This is atrocious & unacceptable. Gross negligence of the highest order!Desired Settlement: I require a refund for the $15.00 domain name that they are charging me & at least 6 months worth of hosting fees so that I may stay with their company & then not take any complaint filing any further. And I require all communication from them be through email so that I can document it & take it further if necessary.

Business

Response:

Review: Company has a[redacted]% [redacted] guarantee, [redacted] has been "[redacted]" for the past [redacted]. They refuse to give any support and their rep "[redacted]" will only refer me to their support docs. "[redacted].:Try and troubleshoot if you can. As there should be a problem with a [redacted] file. Please double check your settings: [redacted]"Desired Settlement: I want to be credited for the [redacted] I have experienced.

Business

Response:

Good Afternoon,

I’ll be happy to look into this further in an effort to try and assist you. Having located your billing account I’m actually not seeing any tickets were opened requesting the downtime credit. I also noted that you appear to have both a shared plan which the[redacted]% [redacted] guarantee applies towards, but a [redacted] as well which is covered by a different network uptime guarantee.

Not being certain as to why server you’re requesting the downtime credit towards I took a look at both and discovered each have been online for quite some time.

[redacted] [~]# uptime

[redacted] up ** days, [redacted], * user, load average: [redacted]

[redacted] ~]# uptime

[redacted] up ** days, [redacted], * user, load average: [redacted]

That suggests the downtime credit likely wouldn't apply here, however in the interest of being fair I did investigate further with the information I have currently.

Which led my investigation to /[redacted] on each server to see if there was[redacted] activity present the past** hours which there was suggesting both the server as well as the[redacted] service has been online and available.

On the [redacted] server which is the[redacted] server ‘[redacted]’ I found [redacted] log entries from [redacted] through [redacted] Taking a look at the logs on your [redacted] I also located [redacted] between [redacted] and[redacted]. The output from each server showing this is below:

[[redacted]

With that said though, I also wasn’t able to locate the chat you had with [redacted] which I’d like to review if at all possible. Based on the server ouput I would have to assume she was attempting to assist you with troubleshooting your [redacted] connection after having unsuccessfully replicate the issue herself, however without the transcript or more information to locate the chat transcript it’s difficult to say with full certainty.

With my current findings while the[redacted] uptime guarantee looks to have been maintained on the [redacted] server and [redacted] access was available on the[redacted] the past** hours we’d ultimately not be able to provide the credit towards what looks to likely be a local issue disallowing you to make an [redacted] connection. Regardless, given I don’t have all the details at this time I’ll await your response to see if that may possibly provide more insight.

I look forward to your response and if it’s preferable please feel free to just email me directly at [redacted]. That’s often the fastest way to contact me as opposed to communicate through the [redacted].

Best Regards,

http[redacted]

[redacted] us! [redacted]

Consumer

Response:

[redacted]:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted] and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

[Provide details of why you are not satisfied with this resolution.]

Regards,

Complaint Detail

Review: Once again Hostgator services have gone down with no explanation, support or response from the company. The company hosts our website and sites for clients. The service has now gone down for hours on end for the third time in the past few months all from the Provo Utah datacenter, affecting our company and clients. Hostgator refuses to provide helpful information, is not available for customer support by phone or chat. Our site has been off line for hours today and at the time of posting this complaint is still off line. We have not been able to reach anyone and when support is offered it is mediocre at best. We have lost thousands and are dismayed by the lack of support by the company.Desired Settlement: We pay for a service that promises 99.99% up time. The downtime of hours on end over at least three instaces in the last few months have cost us thousands with clients. It has hurt our reputation and loss of revenue.

Business

Response:

Good Morning,

Review: I signed up for a 1 year website hosting package on [redacted] 2013 for $44.85.

Recently on [redacted], 2014 I was charged a renewal fee of $179.40 for another year of website hosting services, even though the renewal date is [redacted] 3rd. I no longer own the website and wish to be refunded the $179.40. I have contacted hostgator several times now email, chat and phone (ticket # [redacted] and #[redacted]). Hostgator has told me that the only way I can receive a refund is if the new owner places their credit card on file and pays the renewal charge. I believe the new owner wants the hosting services of hostgator but I am unsure how they will proceed or which package they want to purchase. I do not think it is fair that I am billed 17 days before the renewal date with no option of a refund or for the [redacted] to choose which package they want. One of the Hostgator reps I spoke with on the phone (see last ticket #[redacted]) agreed with me that the billing date for the renewal was extremely early and he thought there wouldn't be a problem with giving a refund. After he put me on hold for 25 mins while he spoke to the billing department he told me that I would only be refunded if the charge was placed on another credit card. I think this is absolutely ridiculous that hostgator charges for services they have not even delivered yet or plan to for several weeks and offer no refund.Desired Settlement: full refund immediately to the card that was charged.

Business

Response:

Good Morning,Thank you for reaching out and our apologies first and foremost for the frustration you’ve experienced. After reviewing the matter, though I understand you sold the site to another person and didn’t intend to continue your hosting with us, it appears you simply never cancelled the hosting till you were charged and the matter became an issue.I apologize if you neglected to review the full Terms of Service when you accepted that during signup, though the situation was entirely avoidable had you read and understood the agreement. I would encourage you to read and understand these agreements fully in the future when considering service providers, better protecting your own interests/finances.That said, I do see our staff was able to work through this with you, having had you submit a cancellation request for the un-necessary account through [redacted]. That was processed earlier today and a refund in the amount of $179.40 issued. Please expect that refund within a business week, as they do take a little time for the card processor to process through. If you have any other questions or concerns please let me know![redacted]

Review: My firm [redacted]. is an internet student travel provider. Our host company Hostgator provides unreliable and unsecure web hosting.For the past 2.5 weeks, our server continues to be attacked with malware. Our firm has suffered grave financial losses. when I call, I speak to a service Rep. In this case, I spoke to a [redacted]. He verified (for the 4th time in 2.5 weeks0 that our site has been infected with malicious malware. He said he would refer to a security specialist. I asked what I feel is a perfectly legitimate request. I wanted to speak to someone at hostgator about why this is happening, and how we can prevent it to the very best of our ability to ever happen again. You see, in my 13 years in business, I have never had my site attacked by malware when it has been hosted by eapps and by godaddy. Now, it goes down every 3 to 4 days. Currently, my team has spent over 30 hours cleaning malware of the site. Luckily, my team is only $15/hour. I am owed a reimbursement of $450 for their time on top of a refund. No where in my agreement do I see it is my responsibility to clear off malware off of THEIR server issue off my website. I'm frankly fed up. If that doesn't seem fair, I'm suing them and I do have the means. This is not a threat. I'm in Texas. I have lost tens of thousands of dollars in PROVABLE damages on top with my site being down. From lost customers to SERP being lost!I cannot even send an email nor receive them as hostgator continues to not be able to resolve this issue. I find their service to clearly be unsecure.Security is paramount. They have no business telling a paying customer they cannot get help on this issue besides every time the website goes down to call back in, get it looked at, and fixed. It's absurd. I want a full refund for December and January for my hosting service. I want a phone call.I find this level of service and their business a total joke. I have the 11th most active google+ account in world. I will tell others if this isn't fixed.Desired Settlement: $450. Refund of December and January HostingCall of apology from Senior Management with explanation to situation. Fix your service to a loyal customer. Give me solution to this problem. You CANNOT offer hosting to established businesses and this poor of support. [redacted]PS don't use this email. Oops. It's hosted by hostgator and currently DOWN. The malware attacked my mail servers too. [redacted]

Business

Response:

Good Afternoon,

As an international company we are always excited to have a chance to speak with our fellow Texans, but unfortunately in this case there has been a large number of unsupported claims made by our customer that require immediate correction.

First and foremost the issue is stated as having begun December 18th, 2013. While it is possible that there were signs of compromise at this time, I have extensively reviewed our logs for any communication via live chat and did not find any contact from either the customer out of Texas, or his developers out of India. Additionally I've searched our logs for the phone numbers we have previous contact from ([redacted] and [redacted]) and have found that we received no contact till the 26th of December via live chat rather than the 18th, at which point the first support ticket was created to our security department for further investigation.

During this investigation it was found that we had not been contacted in time to fully review the situation since the available logs on the dedicated server had since been recycled. Please note as this is a dedicated server only in use by a single customer, the customer has access to control how long logs are kept. In cases where we cannot pinpoint the underlying cause of a compromise, we still completely scan the account, remove any malicious files, and provide recommendations on the most common causes for the type of compromise we find. In this case we did indeed remove all infected files and informed the customer that there were three outdated scripts on the account, which is a major security vulnerability.

The account at that time ran WordPress version 2.1, a version which will hit the age of 7 years old on January 22nd ([redacted]), as well as versions 3.2.1 (now close to 3 years old) and 3.4.2 which is close to a year and a half old. WordPress is now at version 3.8 and is constantly updating to new versions with one of the main reasons for the updates being to patch previous known vulnerabilities.

Moving on, we were then contacted once again on the 31st of December with a report that there had been another compromise. We escalated this to our security department once again but unfortunately we found that the customer's development team out of India had since removed the files they had reported as compromised. When compromised files are removed by the customer or their staff, our security department has no way to retroactively determine how the files were added, meaning our investigation could not occur. We then informed the customer and his staff that if the issue recurs, we will need all content intact.

In the initial complaint there is an impression that we've informed the customer it is their responsibility to remove the infected content. To the exact opposite, we've asked that the customer take no action when the account is compromised as this will completely impede our ability to determine how the situation occurred. Additionally, the customer purchased a dedicated server which we state upfront on the purchase page are "Fully Managed" meaning security audits are included : http://support.hostgator.com/articles/hosting-guide/hosting-plan-comparison/what...⇄ />
Finally in regards to the trouble with the e-mail service, this seems to be the first report we've received on that issue but I've just had a chance to test e-mail on the server and was unable to find any issue with sending or receiving. We will be opening a separate support ticket with the customer to request further information as I have found no previous mention in our chats or tickets.

In summary, due to our staff having made every effort we have available to support an issue that the customer's developers have voided our ability to support, we will respectfully deny the request to reimburse for their time, potential damages or loss of income.

We appreciate the chance to clarify the history of this issue and as well as what is included with this particular service and will be glad to discuss further as needed.

Business

Response:

brought this situation to my attention earlier and I’d like to respond at this

point after having spent some time this morning reviewing your recent ticket

history. First and foremost please understand that while I sympathize

with the losses you mentioned, we’re unfortunately unable to assume

responsibility for damages as our Terms of Service outlines. You

acknowledged that agreement at signup, so I want to make that clear prior to

proceeding with you. I’d like to also note that any further mention of

legal action in the matter will negate my ability to assist you. With

that said, we are here to help and want to ensure these issues don’t continue.

While I also realize the inconvenience and frustration this may have

caused as well, please recognize that you have a responsibility as the account

owner to keep the software your sites utilize updated and secured.

Please

also note that this situation is not the result of a lack of security within

our server environment, as was shown in the first ticket concerning these

compromises, [redacted]. You mention we still have not assisted you

with a concise explanation of how to avoid these compromises in the future,

though we have indeed in the initial ticket. I’m including the contents

of that ticket here in the response, where we clearly mention you need to keep

your software scripts updated, which I notice has since happened with these

sites.

“We

have received a report regarding malicious files located on your account. After

investigating this report, we found that an attacker had gained access to the

account and uploaded malware to the server. Unfortunately, due to the time

frame in which this attack occurred, all relevant server logs had already been

rotated off of the server. Therefore, we are unable to definitively determine

how the compromise occurred. Please make certain to review your account and

update any outdated scripts or plugins to the latest version in order to ensure

that you are taking advantage of the most recent security updates that have

been released for these scripts. If there is anything further that we can do to

assist you, please let us know.

Consumer

Response:

According to the Company's response, I was to leave the site infected until they completed their "investigation," correct?

Few problems here:

1.) no one would answer how long that would take

2.) the site is our "store." When 20% of our people get a malware warning, they will not do business for us. This costs us money. Who pays? Apparently, we accept this financial harm.

3.) my complaint still surrounds the issue of when I called in after the 3rd time the site was infected with malware to raise issue, I was told "a security specialist will look into it." When I asked, can they call me to tell me what happened as well as what I can do prevent this" the flat out answer was "that's not possible Sir." That's unreasonable answer to a reasonable question I think as a business owner.

I cannot tell you how much money this cost us, but I do know this. We booked on average 30 people a day. This means 10 days of this nonsense is 300 bookings with a net profit of $44 per person. $13200 in losses.

I'm glad you guys are so well equipped to substantiate your pathetic service response. To date, I STILL DO NOT HAVE THE ANSWER ON HOW TO PREVENT THIS IN THE FUTURE.

What makes sense to me is to answer my questions, and offer the pittance I asked for. Most clients simply will blow up social media when they get poor service. I choose not to use that as a weapon as our Social Media accounts are amongst the strongest in the United States. For example, my Google+ is the 11th most engaged profile in the world.

I don't appreciate the tone of the response. While professional, simply ignoring the fact malware did in fact attack my dedicated server not once, but 3 times, and then blame me not only for it, but tell me that I should have left the files infected, my site down, and maybe have Google crawl the site so my organic SERP drops. How much in damages would I have incurred then? Ridiculous.

Hey, don't worry, I paid my web development team to remove the infected files. It's done. Don't lose any sleep over it.

I look forward to your positive response. You didn't provide one.

Review: Company suspended my account with no prior warning or indication. Issue was with one of my domains which had illegal code on it (not even administered by myself) I have been a loyal customer for 3+ years and would not do something to jeopardize my account. Had I known about this issue prior to HostGator suspending my account I would have instantly removed the domain from my account. Instead HostGator suspended my account and notified me via email that this had been done. I attempted to live chat a customer service member who refused to help, followed by a string of emails which all came back with representatives who also refused to help me. I had many domains on this account and was so frustrated with HostGator for vexing me in this way that I simply requested for them to send me a backup of my other domains so that I can take my business elsewhere. They chose to refuse me on this too! For no good reason. I have had these domains with HostGator for years without an issue. They would not even send me a single file which carried my site backup. I have content on those domains that I spent hundreds of hours on and to have my account suspended with no access to even retrieve my content is less than appauling. I am beyond shocked at how poorly HostGator has chosen to treat a long-time customer and will take further legal action if this has not been rectified.Desired Settlement: Complete backups of my site domains.

Business

Response:

Greetings,

Thank you for brining this situation to our attention. I'd like to first and foremost offer our sincerest apologies for any frustration or inconvenience this situation has caused you, however we taking security issues and phishing sites extremely seriously. I’d like to clarify what actually took place given you’ve conveniently left out critical parts of the situation, but also outline our Terms of Service agreement which we’ve acted in compliance with given your activities.

First and foremost, a report was made regarding your account and a facebook.in phishing site you were hosting. While I understand that you contest you were unaware of this phishing activity, the account is under your control and is your responsibility to manage. I’d like to ask how it would be possible that you were unaware given this is a shared account which our Terms of Service highlights doesn’t allow you to resell hosting? That’s the first TOS concern if you were in fact reselling and unaware of this account activity.

For the Revdex.com’s reference I’ve included output from our investigation below:

Once the account was found to contain malicious content, which I assume was used to phish logins from [redacted] users, our upper level security team suspended the account and sent you a notice essentially outlining our actions and the fact that we’d no longer be hosting you. Following our second response confirming you’d been banned from the network, you then threatened legal action. That ends our supports ability to communicate with you effectively. With this all clarified, please understand that we’re uninterested in helping aid you with any possible malicious phishing activity your account was involved with. In that regard we will not be releasing the data in the account, nor providing you a refund which you waived through these activities. This is all outlined in detail in our terms of service agreement here: [redacted]

In closing I’m sorry that we cannot provide you with this data, however you did agree to the TOS at signup and have clearly violated this agreement putting yourself in that situation. I don’t believe our staff or any action they’ve taken is negligent, nor will we assume liability for damages if you in fact did not retain a local backup which the TOS also outlines. I’m sorry as well that we will not agree on this action, however I do encourage you in the future to fully read Terms of Service agreements prior to taking services such as hosting. Should you have any other questions or concerns regarding this please let me know. I’m happy to explain or offer clarity if I can to help answer questions in what is obviously not an ideal situation for yourself, or that you’ve put our company in as we hosted this content.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

Business has confirmed they have chosen to neglect and deny service to the customer e.g. "...please understand that we’re uninterested in helping aid you..."

Regards,

Business

Response:

Good Morning,

Can this complaint please be reviewed and hopefully marked closed? The customer was caught and stopped by our security team “phishing” for [redacted] passwords through a ‘[redacted]’ domain he had hosted from his account. He claims to have been unaware of the activity, however does not have a reseller account and should not have been providing any other users his login and password for that matter if he was in fact reselling. This reselling in and of itself violates our Terms of Service agreement, however I doubt he’ll admit to this either.. Regardless he’s admitted to not managing the account appropriately and we’re uninterested in hosting malicious criminal websites or the people that allow these to be hosted from their accounts, nor do we intend to provide him a backup of the malicious sites so he can go to a different host and continue to steal peoples [redacted] logins. If he’s without a backup, that’s on him as the customer unfortunately as our Terms do outline he’s responsible for backups and his data.

Our Terms of Service is also pretty clear about this kind of activity not being tolerated and that we’ll terminate the hosting and part ways immediately should we find a user engaged in this sort of activity. He’s trying to make it an issue of us not assisting a customer, however he’s no longer our customer having received a network ban. Filing a complaint against us with you at the Revdex.com isn’t going to change the outcome of the situation regrettably given it’s both a criminal and legal matter he’s been caught in the middle of.

Section 2 of our TOS discusses this in more detail.

If I can provide any further documentation regarding the situation please let me know.

Review: On [redacted] I received and deposited an affiliates comission check #[redacted] from Hostgator.com LLC for affiliate work. On [redacted] the check bounced and my bank charged me $12.00 for a returned item chargeback fee. After filing an email ticket for help (Ticket ID OKD[redacted]), on [redacted] I received a resolution by email the same day that Hostgator.com LLC agreed to cut me a new check and would be happy to cover the bank fees.Ticket: OKD[redacted]Hello,Thank you for contacting us with your concerns. I truly do apologize for the trouble here. There were some issues with the bank when we sent out the checks this month. I would be more than happy to re-issue this to you. Would you prefer this to be done by [redacted] so you can receive the money today or check? If [redacted], please provide the address we can send it to. We would also be happy to cover the bank fees you received.Warm regards, [redacted]. Affiliate Administrator HostGator.com LLC [redacted]On [redacted] I received a replacement check for $100.00 only. On [redacted] I emailed [redacted] with a reply to the first ticket, to ask about my $12.00 reimbursement. As of [redacted], I received no reply. Today, [redacted] I have emailed the same issue again, and requesting additional information about "proof of funds" to prevent my check from bouncing again, and got an automated system response that provided me with a new ticket number [redacted]. I have not received further response.Desired Settlement: I would like to receive an additional check per the writen agreement, covering my $12.00 bank fees for Hostgator.com LLC bounced check. I would also like to receive proof of funds from Hostgator.com LLC bank ([redacted]) before I cash this and the $12.00 check. A letter from [redacted] on [redacted] letterhead with signature with a banking officer, stating the matching aba and routing number does have sufficient funds to cover both my $100.00 check and $12.00 check. Thank you.

Business

Response:

Good Afternoon,

Thank you for bringing this situation to our attention for additional review. I'm sorry to hear of the troubles you experienced this past month with the affiliate commission payout, however would like to first and foremost offer our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience and frustration this caused. Reviewing your open tickets to the affiliate team currently I do see that they sent the second of two checks to cover the missing $12. That looks to have resulted due to a miscommunication within the accounting department when the check was requested originally for $112. Speaking with our affiliate manager though, he was able to confirm that accounting did get the mistake corrected internally however and has mailed you the second check as of the [redacted]. I was also able to confirm that these more recent checks are clearing without a concern. Though I don't have the specifics as of yet regarding the payment issues last month, it does appear it was an issue for many affiliates with that run of checks, so we do apologize, but the updated checks should be fine.

Hopefully you have that check by now, however if you don't please feel free to email me back directly and I'll get in touch with them to ensure this is corrected fully. I'll email you after my response here so you have the address should you need to contact me, though hopefully accounting has this resolved now. Given the trouble I'd also be happy to provide you a 3 month credit towards your hosting account, though wasn't 100% certain the one I found was in fact correct. The names don't match which I see is the result of a change made in [redacted] to the billing information, though if you can confirm either the client ID, primary domain or email on file, I'd definitely like to get that added for you towards your renewal this coming year. Sorry again for the troubles and I'll look forward to resolving this all with you.

Review: Hostgator billed my credit card twice without authorization. Hostgator has refunded one of the two charges, but after three weeks, Hostgator has yet to refund the second charge. Several requests have been made to Hogator to refund the secnd charge, but I have been lied to each time by multiple employees as to when this charge will be refunded.Desired Settlement: a complete refund of the $178.20, plus compensation for the additional interest charged by my credit card company, plus $1,000 which I am billing to them for all of the time I have spent on the phone, writing emails, and on chat with Hostgator employees trying to get this resolved.

Business

Response:

Review: I contacted Hostgator concerning my website being down on April 22, 2015. It had been hacked after Hostgator failed to take my automatic payment from my [redacted] account. I created a ticket and was told the next day that a scan would need to e performed and then was notified that there current policies had recently been changed and I would have to clean it myself. I waited and sent several emails over the next 5 days with no response back. I even called Hostgator and got nothing but the run around. The ticket is still open as of today's date and I had to hire someone else to fix the issue which they were able to do in a matter of an hour. My sites were down for 4 complete days with no help from Hostgator. I am very displeased with the way I was treated and once my sites are cleaned up, I am seriously considering moving to another hosting company.Desired Settlement: Billing adjustment for the 4 days my sties were completely down, a sincere apology, and if they want me to remain a customer with them: complimentary free service to reimburse my time and expenses to fix the problem myself with hired help.

Business

Response:

Good Afternoon,First and foremost we'd like to apologize for the delay in our security department's response to this inquiry. Although we do not guarantee response times on our these types of reports, we would like to see quicker turn around, and have been working towards increasing our staffing in this department.That said, unfortunately this complaint contained a number of inaccurate pieces of information that we'd like to address. First, in the complaint there was a statement that HostGator failed to take an automatic payment from a [redacted] account. This is not actually the way [redacted] works in that it is [redacted] who sends the money when a subscription is setup rather than the receiver making a withdrawal. We've also double checked the account and found that no [redacted] subscription was setup and that [redacted] had not been in use on the account. Instead, the issue was that the card saved on file was declined when our automatic attempt was made.Next, the complaint claimed that our initial reply back to the ticket stated that Ms. [redacted] would have to clean the account herself. This was not actually the case and we have the logs of this conversation available which indicate our security agent confirmed that our scan had begun, "An automated scan has been started on your account to obtain more information."Moving on to the request for a billing adjustment, although we were sorry to hear Ms. [redacted] may have had a misunderstanding about the requirement of hiring a 3rd party, we did not state that this was required and more importantly, despite her report on the work performed, we had our security department double check the account to be certain.It was fortunate that we did double check as our security department found that the work performed by the 3rd party did not seem to be very thorough. We then replied back via e-mail and provided a very lengthy set of lists detailing the malicious content that remained on the account. From our review, we found that Ms. [redacted]'s account contained multiple outdated scripts which contain known security exploits. While we of course wish we could have provided more information sooner, ultimately we ask that our customers be proactivate about these types of compromises by keeping all scripts on their account up to date, otherwise it is highly likely that the compromises will recur. We have not heard back from Ms. [redacted] following our detailed message on the 29th of April however if we can ever help to escalate any additional concerns, or assist with updating the scripts, we ask to please let our management know by contacting us at [email protected] and we'll be more than happy to help.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.

Hostgator's response to my complaint contained numerous errors. There was an automatic subscription for Hostgator to be paid from my [redacted] account for over a year. I have numerous records of the automatic payments being received by Hostgator from my [redacted] account until the last couple of months. I hired help myself because Hostgator failed to respond to several of my emails over the course of several days. I run a business and cannot afford to have my sites down for as long as they would have been if I left Hostgator to handle this ticket. It took 6 days and a complaint to the Revdex.com to get them to take appropriate action, as noted that they finally replied with action steps on April 29th. The ticket was created April 23rd. I noted in a response to an automated reply to Hostgator that if my sites were not sufficiently cleaned, I would take them elsewhere. I let them know I wanted the sites cleaned, a detail they "overlooked." Hostgator did not clean my accounts just a list of security holes that need to be patched and malicious files that was found and that wasn't until after I filed a complaint with the Revdex.com. I have never filed a complaint on a company with the Revdex.com before and until this incident occurred, I was a happy customer with Hostgator. However, their excuse-filled and customer-blaming response leaves me highly unsatisfied with Hostgator as a company and I will be moving to another hosting company before my next bill comes due unless Hostgator makes a better attempt at resolving this issue.

Regards,